If you've just driven around the block three times looking
for a car space, keep going. The one inescapable fact of life in
21st-century Australia is that it will get harder and harder to
park your car.

There were fewer than 380 cars per 1000 people in 1971. Now,
there are more than 670.

Put another way, Australia's population has grown by more than
53 per cent since the 1970s, but vehicle population has jumped by
173 per cent.

Every year we hear that new car sales have hit records. Last
week, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries announced
955,229 vehicles were sold in 2004 - the third consecutive annual
record.

The sales are not surprising when you consider the state of
public transport.

In an endless embarrassment for the Carr Government, Sydney's
rail network has lurched from crisis to standstill over the past
year. Trains rarely run on time and complaints have trebled in
recent years. The network has struggled to find extra passengers,
adding only about 5 million a year to the 268 million carried in
1996-97.

There are plans to improve public and private bus services, but
today many remain mired in traffic. Stung by criticism in recent
years, Sydney Harbour's ferries have largely been relegated to the
tourist market.

But the mighty motor car is in the middle of a boom.

The number of vehicles on Sydney streets has jumped by more than
40 per cent since 1990.

Despite this, official speeds suggest cars are travelling
faster. Afternoon peak hour traffic has sped up from about 34kmh to
more than 40kmh over that period, the Roads and Traffic Authority
reports.

Technologies such as electronic tolls have made driving around
town easier and billions of dollars have been spent on new
roads.

Motorways have sprung up across most of Sydney and tunnels whip
drivers from A to B. More direct links are on the way, with the
Cross City Tunnel to open this year, and the sweeping, 40-kilometre
Westlink M7 - the motorway that will join all of Sydney's existing
east-west tollways - due next year.

The more roads we build, the more traffic appears. About 110,000
vehicles use the M4 and M5 on a typical weekday. Apart from
seasonal lows, traffic increases virtually month after month.

In Sydney, the share of weekday trips taken by private vehicles
has risen from 67 per cent in 1991 to 71 per cent in 2002, and on
weekends the primacy of the car is even more evident - used for
77.4 per cent of all trips in 2002.

The weekend total for public transport, on the other hand, is a
measly 4.1 per cent.

Some vehicles, such as heavy trucks, buses and vans, are getting
older. (The average age of campervans crept up to 18.9 years last
year.)

But the average age of Australian vehicles - cars, trucks,
buses, motorcycles and campervans - fell from 10.6 years to 10.3
years between 1999 and last year.

Compared with Europe and North America, we have a climate that
is considered benign for cars, allowing them to grow old gracefully
rather than rust away.

"We've had higher-priced vehicles that were less affordable, if
you go back to the '80s," says Peter Sturrock, the chief executive
of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries. "Interest rates
were higher. We have a temperate climate so Australian cars did not
deteriorate as quickly as some parts of Europe."

The Germans put salt on the road to help with the ice and snow,
he says, but this also accelerates the deterioration of their
cars.

Australia's strong economic performance over that time is cited
as one of the main reasons for the younger fleet. In good times,
people buy new cars. Faster turnover of new cars can filter into
the used car market.

"Since most people finance the acquisition of a car with
borrowing, the combination of increased availability of credit and
greatly reduced prices has made a contribution to people's ability
to buy a car," Eslake says.

He says many Australians found it easier to borrow in recent
years because the explosive increase in house prices had created
spare equity for people to play with. Lenders were also more
willing to lend; over the past seven years the development of
products allowing homeowners to borrow against their property to
spend on consumer items such as cars had matured.

"Anyone who bought a house more than five years ago, they have
experienced enormous capital gains," Eslake says. "The way in which
people have been able to dip into that ... is by borrowing against
it."

Catherine Wolthuizen, the finance policy officer for the
Australian Consumers Association, says borrowing against homes in
the past two years had been "driven by aggressive bank
marketing".

At the same time, car prices have fallen. Eslake says tariffs
have come down, deepening the price cuts from falls in global car
prices.

"People are going to buy more of goods that become relatively
cheaper," Eslake says. "There's no doubt that cars are much better
value for money than they were 15 years ago."

Sturrock adds: "That was assisted by tax reform and the GST,
when it came in." He says Australia's stable politics and economy
has underpinned the strong interest in cars.

Frank Stilwell, professor of political economy at the University
of Sydney, agrees the Australian macro-economic environment has
been conducive to car sales growth.

Sturrock says Australia has a very open, competitive market in
which 70 per cent of new vehicles are imported.

But there are more complex, human, reasons cars have become ever
more important.

The complexity of trips carried out by modern people - picking
up children from school, doing the shopping, all while getting to
and from work - has encouraged the use of private vehicles,
Stilwell says.

"All of these [things] that are difficult to do with public
transport," he says. "The sheer deficiency of public transport in
some areas" was also a factor, as were growing concerns about
personal security.

The NRMA's public policy spokesman, Alan Finlay, says growth in
part-time and casual work in recent years has forced many people to
rely on cars, because public transport often does not serve the
areas they need to get to at the right time.

There are more women in the workforce, he says, who often
perform the front-line child-caring duties, which can be impossible
to cater for on public transport.

But Sturrock has a simpler argument based on the Australian
character. "Traditionally Australians like their own private
transport," he says. "We don't tend to turn to public
transport.

"By international standards we have a poor public transport
system. It's not like Europe, Japan or the United States, where the
public transport systems are far more sophisticated and they're
utilised far better. We've got a small population, big country,
long distances, so historically we've had a very weak public
transport system."

Dobinson says demographic factors play a role, with the baby
boomer generation's desire for instant gratification epitomised by
the personal freedom of the car.

While people of earlier generations might have owned a car later
in life, he says, the baby boomers - and their children - wanted
cars as soon as they could drive them.

While public transport use is growing, it is not growing as fast
as car use, he says.

Necessity also drives car growth, he says. "People have to go to
jobs and quite often they're not accessible by public
transport."

Stilwell explains it thus: "Since the juxtaposition of those
general macro-economic conditions and these transport specific
factors, they come together and that creates a dynamite
combination."

The effect on public morale about public transport of the crisis
enveloping CityRail is still largely unmeasured but could grow if
the Government does not improve services.